Posted
by
timothyon Saturday March 08, 2014 @01:08PM
from the some-pretty-good-food-too dept.

McGruber writes "Austin ranks number one in the nation when it comes to offering the largest tech salaries that have been adjusted for cost of living expenses, such as housing, groceries, utilities and other necessities. This is according to a study by TriNet, a company I had never heard off, that provides (buzzword alert!) cloud-based human resources services. The seven major tech hubs, ranked by cost of living adjusted average salaries: 1. Austin: $105,000; 2. Atlanta: $103,000; 3. Denver-Boulder: $98,000; 4. Boston: $79,000; 5. Silicon Valley: $78,000; 6. Los Angeles: $70,000; 7. New York: $56,000." It's true that Austin has cheaper real estate than Silicon Valley, or London, but what this kind of analysis can't capture well is the worth for an individual of living in a particular place. Some jobs are easier to do from Texas (or Timbuktu) than others, and opinions vary wildly about the importance of climate, culture, alternative job options, and other factors. New York living is expensive, Yes, but it comes with a free bonus if New York is where you want to be. Some people even like Los Angeles. Is there a place you'd rather be but forgo because of the cost of living, or a place you'd consider simply because it would amplify your salary?

Two things to keep in mind here. The average price for real estate within the city limits of Austin isn't that high because it's pulled WAY down by the relatively cheap outskirts of town. If you want to live downtown with the cool kids, it's definitely not cheap. (And you DO want to live close to the job here...the traffic is getting insane, and they are doing more to make it worse than they are to fix it. The just keep incentivizing more and more companies to come here.)

And speaking of traffic....how many Dice employees are attending SXSW this year. This post almost perfectly corresponds to the start of the festival. The forces of marketing are strong in Austin...

Every town has traffic problems at 5:00pm. I've experience the traffic in Austin, Houston, San Antonio. Dallas, Chicago, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus (OH), Louisville (KY), New York, Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit and several other places around the country. Austin traffic is not bad at all.

You keep talking about New York, for some reason. I'm not holding that out as my ideal tech city, although yeah...it's IS a damn cool place if you have the substantial means that it takes to live well there.

And yes...it has winters. Austin has summers. I live there right now, and I was here when it hit 114 degrees about 2 years ago. That is almost as fun as the cold. (I grew up in the northeast...I've known both in my life.)

As other posters have mentioned, there are OTHER good technology-oriented citie

Err... "parking" spot. A paring spot is easy, if you have a knife and some apples... it might even help you get a parking spot, if you can maintain a nice serial killer eye-lock when a parking spot fight comes up, and you can menacingly peel that apple.

Maybe theres no shortage of jobs there because no one wants to live there? Or maybe the non-cost of living adjusted average salaries are so low relative to other areas in reality its not worth it in reality?

Austin has been ranked as the 2nd safest city in the USA, but according to other reports, 35% of the population is Mexican. But looking at the Google streetview maps, it looks like a really interesting modern city. The Austin Moon-light towers seem a really interesting architectural feature.

Cost of living here in RTP is dirt cheap, but so is the pay. There are some large entities, IBM/SAAS and the like, but they cannot bring up the Average, and the GOP in charge seems like it wants to keep salaries down in order to bring in more work.

Fighting increases to the minimum wage. A higher minimum wage would increase wages for both the people at the low end and those immediately above the low end. Republicans don't like that.

Fighting government stimulus which provide jobs. Fighting stimulus creates a surplus of workers. More workers means more people looking for work. Businesses don't need to offer good pay to find workers. Republicans like that.

Fighting unemployment payments, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, and housing assistance. All that money eventually enters and supports jobs in local economies. That increases the demand for workers. That also increases salaries. Republicans hate that.

Fighting against sick or vacation days. Keeping people at work means that employers don't need to hire as many workers as companies in other countries. That creates lower demand for workers. That keeps salaries down. Republicans like that.

But is Seattle technical enough to make the list? Microsoft is full of people that are anti-technology and do no technical work. When I worked there as an admin, I know I met at least 500 people that worked there but none of them were developers. Yes, amazon.com is a real tech company, but it is just one, albeit large, company in a large metro area. No, I don't think Seattle qualifies. That is even ignoring the sad state of Internet access. I don't have a single friend with more than 2 Mbps here, and

Microsoft is a major employer of technical talent in the Seattle area even though you didn't see that in your anecdotal experience. Microsoft employs just about 101,000 people worldwide. About 43,000 are in the Seattle area. Yes, not all of them are technical staff. Companies need to employ more than just developers, testers, and admins to operate properly. (Duh?)

Amazon has more employees at about 110,000. It has about 15,000 in Seattle. Those are mostly highly paid engineers, managers and programmers. I

Austin isn't any better. Yes, google fiber, but we still don't know where it will be, and likely if you want to take advantage of cost of living you will LIVE in Round Rock, Cedar Park or Pflugerville and Google is not coming to those places. Much to my chagrin.

This was my first thought when reading this post. Seattle should be on that list for sure.

Maybe, maybe not. Remember, this is not just a salary comparison, it is a salary/cost-of-living comparison. In that sense, I would believe Austin, Denver and Atlanta to be on top over other metropolitan areas, including Seattle. I would also come to the same conclusion by looking at the number of openings for engineering per capita (where Denver come way above most areas.)

The reality is that Denver, Austin, Dallas and Houston are looking nicer and nicer for the tech worker simply because the total net in

Even accounting for the cost of living, Seattle should have made the top 10.

I suspect that what they did was looking at the cost of living in the cities proper, rather than the entire metro area. Living in the city of Seattle itself is expensive, yes. But working there and living somewhere on the Eastside is a much more profitable proposition, and has its conveniences, as well.

Seattle is pretty expensive, and while Portland is much cheaper, it is still more expensive than Austin. I would love to be in either of these places, the Austin heat is not for me, but I've never been able to get parity on CoL from job offers there and honestly that's all that matters to me right now.

Washington has no income tax, which like Texas is a big help, but you still can't beat Texas. Oregon has no sales tax, which is less valuable and likely offset by depending more heavily on income tax. I can se

For people trying to break into the video game industry, the four areas I hear repeated over and over are Silicon Valley (#5 per the article), Seattle (not ranked in the article), Boston (#4), and Austin (#1). I imagine that Austin's low cost of living gives it an even bigger edge over some of the other areas for people seeking to move from areas that aren't major tech hubs. So how much money should someone save up before relocating to Austin for the first time? Dutch Gun says it was $10,000 a decade and a [slashdot.org]

I'm one of the lucky few in that I don't suffer from Allergies spring and fall here in Austin from some kind of Allergies. I mean it is so bad we even have a name for one of them "Ceder Feaver" and if you suffer from it man let me say you don't want to be here!

What actually matters here is not where you want to live to work, but where you want to live eventually/retire to, and how long you are willing to work before you can safely retire, which is how much money you are effectively able to sock away each year.

Austin is still something of a deal, since compared to California, you get about 25% of your salary back through not paying income taxes, but the other places in the article are less of a deal, regardless of the cost of living, because what matters is not the cost of where you are, but the cost of where you end up when you and your money eventually move there. And that includes differential real estate pricing.

Washington is not so much of a deal, unless you live near the Oregon border; Washington makes up for its lack of income tax through sales tax, and Oregon makes up for its lack of sales tax with an income tax, so if you can get salaries in Washington, and buy your consumables, furniture, cars, and other items in Oregon, you can get a pretty good deal. A lot of Microsofties take this option, and have no problem with job transfers, which are more of a problem in Austin than Silicon Valley, but less of a problem than if you took a job at some data center in Iowa.

Of all the things that actually bother me about Austin, I have not had any real problems with the government. They're useless and ignorable, provided you don't intend to CHANGE anything, it's all good.

Austin is still something of a deal, since compared to California, you get about 25% of your salary back through not paying income taxes,

California has the advantage that if you buy a house, you will get a much more expensive property and, over time the value of that house goes up, such that, when you come to sell, you will have a lot more profit on the sale than if you lived in Texas. You can then move to a cheaper state.

If you look at his numbers, the difference for low income and middle income tax payers isn't much. The charts don't really make your point. It's a 2% difference for the lowest 60% of taxpayers. Is that a "much heavier" tax rate? I don't think so. As for high-tax/low-service state, that's not really true either. We get a lot more for out money than in California. I have lived in the SF bay area and also in Austin. It's a lot better in Texas.

Austin is *not* ready to be a big city. Its infrastructure wasn't designed for it. Its traffic jams are some of the worst in the country, its aquifers are in serious trouble owing both to desertification and fracking around the Colorado River's headwaters, and much of its distinctive nature is being destroyed by new development. This is why you see signs reading, "Welcome to Austin! Don't move here."

That's just about the same in every city now... you should see the traffic jams in Silicon Valley - entire freeways stretching all the way from Sunnyvale to Menlo Park at dead stop. At night-time, you'd just see rows and rows of car headlights and taillights going all the way to the horizon.

Exactly, let's factor in the cost of my time sitting in traffic. If you assume 1 extra hour round trip at 1.5x pay, $100k turns in to $84k for the time you're actually at work and $16k for sitting in traffic. Until self driving cars come along, you'll be staring at the truck in front of you for a non-trivial portion of your life

going to austin tomorrow for 2 weeks. will have to commute 30+ km across the centre of the city. let's see how that works out with a motorcycle.with a car i'd probably be looking for another job now instead of reading this:)

Sad to say, I know people who are working intimately with the water issues of Barton Springs and San Marcos, and what they tell me gives me great concern.

My advice: don't move into a house in or near Austin without rainwater catchment or a cistern. It'll be difficult just a few years down the road, and you'll be a drain on thinning resources. And for the love of god, don't expect to keep a standard issue green grass lawn through the summer. Native grasses and orchards, rainwater harvesting, even xeroscap

Quality of Life is not factored in, but is ranked separately. The rankings are almost inversely correlated With Adjusted Salary 1st place winner Austin in 2nd to last place, and 2nd place for Adjusted Salary Atlanta in dead last place for quality of life.

How can a list of "the seven major tech hubs" not include Seattle, which is home to some of the biggest tech companies in the world, but include cities like Atlanta? That is a strangely biased list so I wonder what the criteria was for "tech hub".

I worked for Apple in the early 90's, when they were opening their first sites in Austin. Our group was eventually moved there (and I'm still there, in a suburb) from Campbell, CA. Anyway, at the time there was a lot of internal marketing around "why you would want to move to Austin."

With perfect timing, the local San Jose newspaper ran a political cartoon captioned "There Are Problems Everywhere" or something like that. It had a drawing of the entire United States, with descriptions of the local problems. California was titled with "Earthquakes" and a little arrow. Florida had "Hurricanes."

The state of Texas was decorated with the word "Texans" right in the center, with little arrows pointing all around.

But the problem with Austin is that it is surrounded by Texas. Traveling in any direction the moment you leave Austin you are waist deep in loud, ignorant, obnoxious assholes. I used to work for a company in Sunnyvale, CA. that announced that it was moving to Austin. They kept going on and on about how cheap housing was and how big a house you could get for the money you were paying in the Bay Area. Even with all that more than half the company quit rather than move to G*D forsaken Texas. The company did mo

I grew up in Austin in the 80s and 90s and watched things first-hand: first there was the mid 80s (1985-86) semiconductor bust (component makers were out-competed by Japan). Fifteen years later there was the Dot Com crash (gutted Dell, as well as dozens of smaller web startups headquartered in the city). Every time the market bust, it was 2+ years before jobs reappeared, making it a dangerous place to call home.

If you want to live there, go on ahead - just make a nestegg your first priority (and take the cost of that into account when you are pricing out the city).

I make less than half of what I could be making. But I'm also making four times what I need to pay the bills, which means early retirement, hello! And if I ever found myself unable to work in the tech industry, I could still pay the bills working in a grocery store.

making $100,000/year and having $60,000 or $70,000 of that amount after taxes going to rent

That's way too high of a rent estimate. Even in San Francisco, you can get a decent place for 1 person for $3000/month.

Generally speaking, if you put a premium on having a big house and lots of land, Silicon Valley is probably not for you as the difference in pay will not make up for the absurd cost of housing. If you're willing to compromise on housing, the higher pay is more than worth it in terms of the stuff and experiences you can afford. Compared to most places, housing is a lot more expensive, and restaurants/bars are moderately more expensive but groceries are cheaper (high-quality produce, in particular) and most non-perishable goods (cars, anything you can buy on Amazon) are the same price as everywhere else.

making $100,000/year and having $60,000 or $70,000 of that amount after taxes going to rent

That's way too high of a rent estimate. Even in San Francisco, you can get a decent place for 1 person for $3000/month.

Umm, re-read the GP - "after taxes." In CA, you're looking at about 10% income tax to the state. Add that to fed income tax bracket of about 25%, and you're looking at $60000 = $39000 or less after taxes. (Obviously a quick estimate.) You say you can get a decent place for $3000/month = $36000 after taxes. GP's estimate is not necessarily "way off": point is that it could easily require more than 50% of your after tax income in CA for rent. In TX, you not only have significantly cheaper rent, but no

Lots of places have 'reasonable' public transit but relying on it may still be a compromise in quality of life. On the other hand if the public transit really does (more or less) replace car ownership, then that can alter the cost of living calculation substantially.

New York City does have the financial services industry, and a lot of big law firms, which tend to pay a lot of money.

If any business can afford to be located in New York City, they must have a lot of money, and if they need your skills, they can pay you a lot. They can even pay you enough to live there. Some national corporations used to have a 10% salary premium for employees in New York City.

If your goal is to save as much money as you can, you'd be better off in New York City. You can relocate later.

There are a lot of tech workers in the DC area, and a relatively high cost of living.

It is because of its COL that it is not listed. Baltimore would come over the DC area because of its lower COL, but it would still trail Denver and Atlanta. I'm very surprised that Baltimore is not over NY and that Houston and Dallas (which are as cheap to live as Austin) are not in the list.

Having moved to Austin from NYC, I'm struggling to figure out exactly what part of NYC is a luxury. Even when I was there I did my best to either live in NJ, or some burb with train access. NYC has a lot of great food of all types and mass transit, but I'm not sure I'm missing any of the rest of it.

The idea that more "cosmopolitan" city is going to have less of a commute is just nonsense. You will just be dealing with trains run on someone else's schedule versus driving yourself. Concentrating yourself into an overpriced sardine can is not necessarily going to positively impact the "time lost" aspect of the job.

Chances are that cutthroat competition from people that love to live in the office will wipe out any direct fiscal advantage of a car free commute.

Quality of Life is not factored into to Adjusted salary rankings, but is ranked separately. The rankings are almost inversely correlated with Austin in 2nd to last place and Atlanta in last place for Quality of Life.

Seriously, how many engineers do you know whose base pay is over $200K/year? I've been working in SV since 1987 and I only know a handful of people like that (although sometimes bonus does significantly shift that number).

good luck with your subway in SV, or perhaps you just need reading comprehension lessons. Obviously NYC's mass transit is miles ahead of most other cities, and SF's as well. Im not about to spend an hour or 2 in mass transit or traffic hell when I can have my nice 15min commute and not waste 15 hours of my life a week in commuting

No college grad is getting a 130k in SV. Maybe half that if they know the right people.Wages in the valley are very low and pulled down by both collusion and a huge influx of cheap labor form outside N. America.Perhaps you are trying to qualify your statement with 'top notch engineer' and the ratio of top notch engineers in the valley is far worse that most places I have been. Something like 1 to 5000 in the valley where you may find 1 to 500 or even 1 to 100 where the wage to cost of living and quality of

CoL is quantitative. "I don't want to live in X" is qualitative, highly subject to individual ignorance. NYC is what I have experience with, having lived there off and on for 20 years. Most people I talk to there have absolutely no clue about anything south of Maryland or north of Connecticut. Jokes have been published to this effect. I'm honestly not sure they ARE aware how much they're paying, and have considered what they're getting in return.